Category: Mobolaji Sanusi

‘Try not to become a man of success but rather, try to become a man of value.’ — Albert Einstein

General Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo is perhaps one of God’s beloved on planet earth. For reasons beyond human comprehension, the Almighty has been very generous to this former military Head of State and a two-term president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But for the National Assembly and most importantly, God that foiled his self-perpetuation bid in power, that is euphemistically called Third Term Agenda, Obasanjo would probably still be the country’s president today. So far, no other Nigerian, living or dead, has recorded the same feat as Obasanjo at the topmost echelon of governance in the country.

As a soldier, he received the instrument of surrender from Biafra’s second-in-command, Phillip Effiong. He became Head of State when General Murtala Mohammed was killed by coupist Buka Suka Dimka in 1976. The apogee of Obasanjo’s military career came when he voluntarily relinquished power as military Head of State to a civilian administration headed by President Shehu Usman Shagari in 1979. He was globally celebrated as a champion of sorts in African continent where sit-tight syndrome had become the hallmark. Obasanjo became the toast of global countries/institutions.

For 20 years, Obasanjo bestrode the nation’s political terrain like a colossus, sounding most times as the moral voice of the country. He lampooned Shagari administration’s profligacy; damned the charade called political transition by Ibrahim Babangida, even though his voice was neither here nor there, on the annulled June12, 1993 Presidential election results won by his Egba kinsman, Aare MKO Abiola. Obasanjo later ended up to be that mandate annulment’s ultimate beneficiary in 1999. He tried his dubious antics of playing the questionable mouth-piece of the nation against the late Sani Abacha, but the rest is history today.

What Obasanjo pretended to be and which the public presumed him to be (an epitome of incorruptibility and selflessness) was different from what he was and still is. This came to the fore when he served as president between 1999 and 2007 before he was disgraced upon the demise of his tenure elongation agenda. Obasanjo, as president, epitomised everything bad that he condemned in Shagari, Babangida and Abacha combined. To aggravate his case, he came out as a pretentious and greedy power monger with unrivalled malicious disposition.

He believes nobody is superior to him and that he must be the head of whichever group he belongs. He used Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-cultural group to sustain his political career in the South-west and dumped it subsequently. For no just reason, Obasanjo hates the late Yoruba leader, Obafemi Awolowo with egregious passion; he loathes Nnamdi Azikiwe, even in death, by ensuring that the mausoleum of the Great Zik of Africa was not completed during his tenure. Obasanjo made sure that no posthumous national honour was accorded MKO Abiola when he was in power. The National Assembly called on him to name the National Stadium, Abuja after him; he looked the other way. In all his so-called presidential speeches during his tenure, he avoided mentioning Abiola’s name like a plague.

Obasanjo feels uncomfortable when compared with genuine achievers in Nigeria. He hates being reminded that someone is about to or indeed has surpassed his ‘achievements’. He is an embodiment of deceits. The Alliance for Democracy (AD) governors that were booted out of power in the South-west in 2003 could perfectly attest to this fact. He has no permanent good friends. When he calls somebody his friend, there must be something injurious to the society that binds that person to him. Anyone that is loved by the people or is meaningfully supporting the populace is Obasanjo’s natural enemy.

Institution-wise, Obasanjo never moved the nation further than he met it in 1999. He deliberately bastardised political parties in the country. He inflicted worse tyranny on the nation; he foisted worse greed and corruption on the land; he benefited from democracy even while he did everything within his power to destroy democratic institutions; he ruled the nation with malice and vengeance. Yes, it could be said that Obasanjo was elected twice as president but the elections that were organised in 2003 and 2007 under his tutelage were the worst ever in the annals of the country. Even if the evidence to buttress this might have been destroyed, there is one that Obasanjo’s presidential might cannot destroy. In 2005, the election to fill the traditional stool of Owu kingdom in Abeokuta where Obasanjo hails from was conducted.

The first time the election held, this former president, then a sitting president, stopped the process even when a communiqué on the winner had been issued by the kingmakers. He ordered a re-run through a kangaroo injection of warrant kingmakers appointed by his initially surrogate but later nemesis government in Ogun State at that period. The appointed warrant kingmakers happened to be his cronies. After the second election, Obasanjo’s candidate surprisingly lost out after the ballots were counted. He grabbed the ballot papers in annoyance from the presiding officer and tore them into pieces before flinging them away. He stormed out of the Owu Palace venue of the election for the Naval Secondary School where a chopper was waiting to take him to Abuja. He sent his aides to try and retrieve the torn ballots but they could not locate them again.

But yours sincerely, also from Owu, has the privilege of seeing those original torn ballots signed by Obasanjo and the other warrant kingmakers and they are well kept somewhere today. The man that never won the traditional stool election is unfortunately the Oba of Owu-Abeokuta today – courtesy of Obasanjo’s tyranny and whimsical abuse of power.

The above depicts how Obasanjo ruled Nigeria for eight years. Whatever the wishes of the people at election time, Obasanjo had his way by imposing his cronies on them. He foisted ailing Umaru YarÁdua on People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and rigged him and the current inept President Goodluck Jonathan into power during the presidential election of 2007. Both ran on the same ticket. Albert Einstein, the 1921 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century who at one time commented: ‘Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.’ Einstein added value to the world and in the process became a man of success. Unfortunately in Obasanjo’s case, he became a man of ‘success’ that is of no lasting value to his immediate world.

The questions are: Could such a man be described as a great leader? Could he be classified as a true statesman? What would a good student of history have to say/write about Obasanjo? Like his hateful description of Zik, Obasanjo has descended from the global international man of repute in 1979 to the unreliable cantankerous Balogun of Owu-Abeokuta in 2013. More posers: Were those that gathered in Obasanjo’s Abeokuta Presidential Library last recently really celebrating or mocking him? Even at 76, does Obasanjo, despite all the atrocities he had committed against Nigerians, deserve to be celebrated? The answer for these questions would be left for genuine historians to decide. Anyway, happy 76th birthday (which he clocked on March 5) to the man his loyal PDP supporters prefer to call Baba!

‘Architects of grandeur are often the master builders of disillusionment.’ — Bryant H. McGill 

What a man! His people call him Mr Fix-it; they see him as the unrepentant and consistent point-man for the establishment. The politics of this man has no conscience; it has no empathy for the feelings of the majority in so far as the interests of his minority followers would be served. The man finds it easy to flock with the sheep and also dine with the wolf at the same time. He was at home with military despots just as he presently covets ‘democratic’ impostors. He is a status quo ante man that is always courted by men of power that crave his over-estimated knowledge, understanding and supposed strategy for the entrenchment and protection of conservatives in power.

The man yours sincerely is describing is Chief Tony Anenih who, by August, will clock 80. Out of these years, he has spent, since the Second Republic, 32 years as an active participant in the nation’s political odyssey. The Republics in which Anenih played prominent roles actually laid the foundation for the problems being faced today in the country. Can he be extricated from, especially the socio-economic cum political problems, that have riddled the country in about four decades? If yes, does he still have the energy, drive and agility to continue to hold active political position and do hatchet jobs for the establishment? If no, what else does this old man want? What does he derive from his politics of inimical effects?

The afore-stated questions become pertinent in view of Pa Anenih’s recent ‘unanimous’ election as chairman, Board of Trustee (BoT) of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) – not at the party’s Wadada Party headquarters but within the cosy confines of Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja. He occupied the position until 2007 when he was ousted by former President Olusegun Obasanjo who was his close ally. The same intrigue that surrounded his ouster as chairman in 2007 paved way for his emergence as head of the BOT in 2013. The last ‘election’ was severally postponed because other contenders for the seat including ex-Vice President Alex Ekwueme, former President of the Senate, Ken Nnamani and former PDP national chairman, Ahmadu Ali initially refused to step down for Anenih, obviously President Jonathan’s preferred candidate.

Anenih, through the ambition-driven benevolence of President Jonathan has finally paid back the man (Obasanjo) that caused his infamous removal in 2007 in his own coin. President Jonathan ensured that Anenih against all odds emerged as BOT chairman just because he perceives him as the man that can make his re-election dream of coming back as president in 2015 come true. Having achieved this goal of foisting Anenih on the party, the question to ask is; how realistic is this presidential thinking?

The presidency must have been convinced by Anenih’s touted track records in electoral rigmarole and power misapplication. Even Anenih at 80 seems to be optimistic of his capability of turning, one again, the electoral table against Nigerians that are fed up with Jonathan’s administration in the coming 2015 elections through his moralising statement that he was elected as chairman of the BOT which he calls ‘…the conscience of the party,’ by consensus so as to ‘make meaningful contributions’ to the progress of the party. He sent a signal of his political ruthlessness when he re-echoed that “PDP is on the move again… APC is not a threat to PDP. We never had a strong opposition. Let us see how strong APC will be.” He erroneously believes that PDP cannot be stopped by any merger of political parties in the country.

At his age, Anenih must note that there are still some Nigerians with a good sense of history. A recap: In 1981 when Anenih was first elected chairman of the defunct National Party of Nigeria in the then Bendel State, he sat over the massive rigging/fraud against the Unity Party of Nigeria’s Ambrose Alli. In 1992/93, he became the chairman of the defunct Social Democratic Party that won the June 12, 1993 Presidential election before he later compromised as the party leader who negotiated that significant mandate for Abacha’s despotic reign.

By 1999, when democracy came on board, he served as Minister of Works under former President Obasanjo. A speck on his white linen came in October 2009, long after he had left office, when a Senate ad-hoc committee on transportation, led by Heineken Lokpobiri, released a damning report, detailing how Anenih allegedly mismanaged billions of naira meant for the rehabilitation and construction of Nigerian roads. The committee report, though nowhere now to be found again, reportedly blamed Anenih and his successors in the ministry for the poor state of Nigerian highways during the period and called for their prosecution. He was deeply entrenched in the infamously aborted Third Term plot of Obasanjo. He contributed immensely to the rape of democracy in his home state, Edo (formerly Bendel state), and Nigeria in general.

For attaining these infamous feats in politics, President Jonathan has rewarded him twice by appointing him as chairman of the Board of Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA). And now with the so called chair of PDP’s BOT from where he is expected to galvanise, organise and mobilise support for the re-election ambition of the nation’s non-performing president.

Perhaps, what Anenih and Jonathan, including their other supporters in political crimes, do not realise is that the current political consciousness among Nigerians has zero tolerance for the trademark electoral mischief of PDP. That is why most Nigerians are unanimous in their thinking that if the All Progressives Congress (APC) can get it right, then the days of PDP at the centre are numbered.

One thing is clear: Anenih’s leadership of that BoT, like that witnessed under Obasanjo, his once-upon-a-time friend, would be devoid of conscience and very likely honour. Let Anenih continue to plot evil against the wishes of Nigerians as the 2015 elections draw close. He should have dumped the idea were he not to be a poor student of history. As chairman of NPN in early eighties, the consequence of his plot against Ambrose Alli is there for all to see today. His plot against June12 election with Ibrahim Babangida destroyed any iota of honour in the former military president till date. Anenih connived with despotic Sani Abacha on his transmutation agenda and we all saw how Abacha ended. The same thing he did with Obasanjo on his truncated third term agenda and the former president has become an object of mockery on issues of democracy around the world.

Whilst he came out of previous onslaught against Nigerians unscathed, his current move with Jonathan needs circumspection. The ominous signs are there for lack-lustre Jonathan to see, that Pa Anenih might probably be his waterloo ultimately. The message is crystal clear: This Mr ‘Fix-it’ that unceremoniously lost his base and hold on to Edo politics cannot fix anything for Jonathan. Let us wait and see; 2015 beckons!

‘When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.’
——-Joseph Campbell

The latest addition to our political lexicon in this country is the All Progressives Congress (APC), a political agglutination of four political parties including Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP). No reasonable human in this geographical expression called Nigeria would doubt the need to checkmate the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) under the leadership of undutiful President Goodluck Jonathan. The party has maintained an iron-fisted rule over Nigeria through misuse of state’s instrument of coercion and the electoral commission to give itself political mileage over other parties.

The conservatives are critical of political alliances, but history has shown that those that are critical of such political marriages are the same people that have done nothing for the country in over 52 years of independence. For instance, President Goodluck Jonathan, the leader of that group under the current dispensation rode to power on the back of a promised transformation agenda planned for between 2011 and 2015 to correct what he calls the flaws in the country’s drive for development due to lack of continuity, consistency and commitment to agreed policies initiated by the military and now by democratic conservatives. An idea, he says, draws inspiration from Vision 20:2020.

Jonathan promised among others to develop for the nation, a macro-economic framework and to give her an economic direction. He promised job creation with special focus on the implementation of the National Action Plan on Employment Creation (NAPEC) targeted at creating five million new jobs annually within the next three years; establishment of visible skills acquisition centres; implementation of local content policy in all the sectors with particularity in the oil and gas industry. He also promised to guarantee an effectively transparent public expenditure management that places emphasis on capital expenditure over recurrent spending. Has he fulfilled all these?

Governance under the conservatives as currently typified by Jonathan has been devoid of panaceas for our appalling state of infrastructure, poverty, unemployment and security. Institutions of state are daily relapsing as epitomised by poor public service; insecurity, rising corruption profile, low private investment drive, surreptitious gagging of judiciary, pliable legislatures that are not public responsive in tackling issues of transparency and accountability in the use of public funds. Under conservative Jonathan/PDP, where are the promised improvements in the education and health sectors and of course, labour and productivity? Till the present moment, the touted improvements in the power and transportation sectors remain on paper –sheer mirage.

Under the prevailing debilitating atmosphere, an alliance of politicians with identical aspiration becomes inevitable. Afterall, Edmund Burke, a British Parliamentarian and statesman once said: ‘When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle” – (and l add, “for power.”) Although it might be difficult to just write off PDP conservatives as bad men, it is an indubitable fact that their policies have not moved the nation forward in 14 years of being in the saddle. These make them akin to something ominous: While the word bad might be seen to be harsh to use against these PDP men/women, one might be pardoned when the klieglight is beamed on their crude do-or-die politics that raised revolution thought in the consciousness of Nigerians to a daily recurrence in almost one-and-a-half decades.

Most people with a good sense of history will for a long time continue to hesitate whether coalition politics can work; but they should give this one a chance for it could work. The only thing is that those involved must be watchful of Samuel Butler’s counsel when he aphorised: ‘Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.’ What direction are parties to the APC unity alliance focussing on? Are they only interested in grabbing power from Jonathan/PDP or do they have an already articulated action plan to resolve most of the problems that proved too gargantuan for Jonathan to solve which have been enunciated above?

Definitely, Jonathan/PDP and their allies will fight back…and intensely too, against the alliance. What are the plans of this alliance against treachery from within?

Will the alliance succeed in getting each participating political party to the alliance to convene a broadly acceptable national convention as provided in section 80 of the electoral Act, 2010 that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will endorse? What if INEC hides under fractionalised convention to turn down APC’s registration request? What is the alliance’s plan B? They must have been giving a thought to this angle too.

The APC needs to get it right, otherwise, the alliance will pay dearly for getting it wrong while the subsequent opportunity to get it right against the inept PDP at the centre may for a long time to come remain an elusive adventure. However, if a swift and conscientious opposition is truly a part of loyalty to country, then, this alliance must not fail. The time to achieve this is apt because majority of Nigerians, especially those from the north and the south-west are disenchanted with the 14 years of PDP imposition at the central administration of the country.

While l realise that a lot of rigours, thinking, time and energy have been dissipated in the promotion and formation of this alliance, something within me doubts the sincerity of the personalities from the three other political parties. My advice: The CPC should remove their garb of political superciliousness; APGA must prove to be a reliable political ally while ANPP should see this alliance as an opportunity to bounce back to national reckoning. For the ACN and its leadership: Form alliance with these parties with open heart but don’t rely on them because doing so might be perilous to south-west’s political future. Being the party of target by PDP henchmen, its leadership should learn to realise that there might be moles acting as under cover agent for Jonathan and his cronies from these parties. Moreso, the president as supposed leader of PDP is ready to dare anybody, including his party’s governors and any other thing in sight, to win the party nomination and the presidency come 2015.

The INEC challenge is equally something disturbing because the presidency might possibly use the commission to stall the alliance. However, these are surmountable obstacles provided the people in the alliance could forego thinking primarily about themselves and for their own self-preservation. The collectives’ wellbeing should be paramount to all at this moment. The focus on this, Joseph Campbell posits, would allow for a truly ‘heroic transformation of consciousness’ among the people. The APC challenge is that of conscience. It should be seen as an open wound which only truth and sincerity of purpose can heal for the betterment of the Nigerian society.

“Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”
John F. Kennedy

The inimitable legend of socialism, Karl Marx has been proved wrong by Nigerians. Marx’s position that religion is the only opium of the people might be fallacious to the extent that citizens of my country, Nigeria, recently showed that the round leather game of football is their own opium, even if momentarily.

Football, otherwise called soccer, is a game that has tremendous followership all over the world. The game is one of passion for it brings joy as well as sadness; it evokes emotion as well as compassion. Football could sometimes lead to violence of unimaginable magnitude when favourite teams lose games. Soccer is a game of love just as it breeds revulsion. The contemporary game of soccer that has even become one of money spinning has created several models that younger folks the world over look up to. Global companies scramble to get such football models’ endorsements.

Without equivocation, football remains the prime enveloping culture that humanity knows; the language the diverse peoples of the world understands; the bridge for global networking and the tonic for life renewal. No other game has beaten the record of football for it uses its altar to bring humanity together to celebrate and worship at the same time. The passion of Nigerians for football is unsurpassable. My countrymen and women, like other citizens of the world, have shown unalloyed commitment and love for the round leather game. Whenever the national team, the Super Eagles are playing, Nigerians become truly one indivisible and indissoluble country. This well loved game brings people of different geographical, religious and political divides together in my country. It is during football matches that we do not remember federal character, quota system, zoning system and other detrimentally anti-societal epithets.

During such games, especially when the country’s teams are performing well, football to Nigerians is life. They forget their despair and poverty that are caused largely by misgovernance cum corruption that have been the hallmark of public affairs in the country. Our people, also like their counterparts in other continents of the world stay glued whether at the stadium or on television, to that rectangular piece of grass called soccer pitch. Momentarily, they rejoice in genuine nationalistic celebration and for few weeks savour the joy of victory through incisive analysis and panegyrics.

The above depicts the scenario that unfurled in the country immediately the nation won her third African Cup of Nations gold medal. In a contemporary rare display of genuine love that is devoid of retrogressively created boundaries, Nigerians celebrated the victory that eluded the country for 19 years. The last time the nation won the cup was in 1994 under the despotic reign of that tyrant and position usurper called Sani Abacha. Ironically, the skipper of that 1994 squad, Stephen Keshi, was the coach that tutored the team to victory in 2013 in South Africa, the host of that edition of AFCON competition.

For 19 years, Nigerians saw the miserable side of soccer. The now swaggering Eagles wobbled and fumbled thereby forcing our countrymen and women to transfer their passion for the game to supporting other high soccer performing countries in Africa and clubs across the globe; most of our homes were compelled to watch premiership games and other European leagues at very high subscription costs because the local league is less inspiring if not near comatose. We all erroneously believed more in foreign based professionals until the likes of Sunday Mba and Omeuro displayed classical soccer skills in South-Africa. No doubt, there are still other talents in the local league that are waiting to be tapped.

The beginning of what l termed to be new dawn in soccer in the country should be properly managed so that the accruing benefits would not be frittered away. Beyond the funfair of presidential reception, doling out of national honours, cash and land rewards for the team by government and corporate bodies, the most important task is to commence planning ahead on how to make the Eagles gather more positive steam to tackle future soccer challenges. The team had just conquered Africa and what stops it from taming the entire world when it comes to this round leather game of football.

This poser has brought back fond memories of the era of Aare MKO Abiola, John Masteroudes, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu and Israel Adebajo in Nigerian football. These were individuals that once made our local league to be a must watch several decades back. They established and massively funded great clubs such as the Stationery Stores of Lagos, Abiola Babes of Abeokuta, Leventis United of Ibadan and Iwuanyanwu International of Owerri. These clubs produced great football players that made the day of millions of Nigerians at local and international levels.

The questions that should be asked at this juncture are: Where are similar sports oriented wealthy people in today’s Nigeria? If they are still amongst us, what is delaying them from establishing such well funded and managed clubs so that the glory of our local league can be returned? What about our state governments? Can’t they revive Stationery Stores, Abiola Babes and others for the sporting good of their people?

The Mike Adenugas and Aliko Dangotes of this world can go ahead and be donating millions of naira and even dollars to the Eagles and football promotions; but their impact will be more felt if they can establish football clubs that would bring about talent generation and also return the local league to its old glorious days. The Football Academy reportedly set up by Globacom is not enough. Such should be an appendage of a great football team owned by the outfit. The way football academies are structured in the country, the academies merely scout for and train talents that are immediately sold to foreign clubs at no gain to the country’s local league. The dearth of sports infrastructure should not be an excuse for their likes (Adenuga and Dangote), that are rich enough to construct football facilities if they really want the game to genuinely grow in the country.

The victory of the Eagles should be treated as compensation for soccer loving Nigerians that waited eagerly for 19 years before the dawn of this new era. The football authorities and football loving rich men/organisations should consolidate on this scorecard rather that allow the benefits to slip away just like that. To the players of the Super Eagles, they must realise that winning is not everything but the spirit of wanting to win. The latter is what they must sustain in future soccer endeavours.

Corruption is a tree, whose branches are Of an immeasurable length: they spread Ev’rywhere; and the dew that drops from thence Hath infected some chairs and stools of authority.
——John Fletcher in: The Honest Man’s Fortune (1613; published 1647), Act III, scene 3

Nigeria’s ship of state is sinking and the capsizing ship stinks of seeming alarmingly irredeemable official corruption. It is worrisome to note that a former deputy director in the Police Pension Office connived with others still undergoing trial to steal N32billion, in a country where her Minister of Police Affairs publicly declared that over 4000 police pensioners are yet to receive their pensions for lack of funds.

The position being espoused today is not because one is anti-wealth but it is because this writer is anti-greed. This is because the business of government is gravely being unimpeded by corruption. I have nothing against the smell of rot but something against who hides the smell of rot. One Latin phrase, Corruptio optimi pessima which means: “Corruption of the best becomes the worst,” sums up the entire graft scenario in the country.

Every day, the big men in power are criminally depleting our collective till just to serve their personal end. This criminally awkward trend has been on the increase because the accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference until this case of John Yakubu Yusufu. Nigerians have chosen to say no, in a loud bang, to the festering sore called corruption. Now, they seem to appreciate the logic of what Edward Griffin was saying when he said that “To oppose corruption in government is the highest obligation of patriotism.”

John Yusufu, a former deputy director in the Police Pension Office was accused, arraigned and convicted for stealing of colossal sum of N32.8 billion pension funds, with five others. Their acts injured the felicity upon which the Nigerian society is based. The big issue is not about Yusufu’s conviction, neither was it about the confiscation of his properties. What has generated unbelievable public tumult is the condescending option of fine given him by the presiding judge of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, Justice Abubakar Talba. The stolen police pensioners’ commonwealth would have been enough to offset the gratuity/pensions of verifiable yet-to-be paid police pensioners across the country. Despite this cruelty of action and judgement against police pensioners by those in power that are responsible for stealing their commonwealth, they still rely on serving policemen to protect their lives and ill-gotten wealth. What an irony!

There is no doubt that the custodians in the Temple of Justice are the judges. They are by the rarefied inviolability of their job looked upon as revered men and women that must at all time uphold the torchlight of justice. This perception is excepted because in such places as the United States (US) and United Kingdom among others, judges are believed to be above board. Also noteworthy is the fact that before any one can be considered fit and proper to be appointed on the Bench, he/she must have track record of unimpeachable character. The Bench, and even the Bar, ordinarily should not be havens to men and women with no conscience. The word conscience here is consciously used because when the law as it is might likely cause serious mischief to the society, it is expected that a judge should use his/her discretion by adhering to the dictates of his/her conscience that is the ultimate judge of human actions, because conscience is for centuries adjudged to be an open wound which only truth can heal. The truth in the use of privileged discretion by a judge in criminal and civil matters is what can heal the society from the criminality of corruption, armed robbery, kidnapping and terrorism among others.

Any misuse of such discretionary powers could confirm the age long statement of that philosopher, Marcus Cicero, when he aphorised: “The greatest incitement to crime is the hope of escaping punishment.”With due respect to His lordship of the Abuja High court, his judgement on Yesufu is nothing but an incitement to crime and an impetus to other filchers of public till that they can escape punishment from whatever criminality perpetuated against the state.

Justice Talba in the eyes of the law might be deemed to be following the provisions of the Penal Code applicable in the FCT in dishing out what he considers to be due punishment to the convict. But was he not outraged by the greed of the man? No one is advocating for the judge to bring emotion into law and adjudication; this is not allowed in legal jurisprudence. However, looking at law from the sociological context is permissible in this sphere of legal study. What social effect is Talba’s judgement going to have on the entire country and her governance? Will it dissuade others in power from stealing or further goad them to steal from our collective wealth? Where is the deterrence in the judgement?

The alleged offence is punishable under the relevant sections of the Penal Code Act Cap 532 Laws of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria 2007. The judge has the discretion to fine and equally sentence the convicted man but opted to give him an option of fine. This was what led to insinuations by some members of the public that the judge might have allegedly been compromised. If not, why does he give such judgement that gives him out as someone that has no belief in the often mouthed official anti-corruption war going on in the country and; empathy for the debilitating effect of corruption inflicted by powerful men on the poor masses whose wealth is being stolen with impunity.

Someone conspired with others to steal N32.8billion and the best judgement given him by our court was an option of fine of N750, 000; l doubt if Justice Talba has any conscience. His status as a judge has to be reviewed for dishing out this curiously insensitive judgement. He has flouted the rule established by the great Lord Denning(MR) in the case of Metropolitan Properties Co. Ltd v. Lennon (1969) QB557@559 where he said: “Justice must be rooted in confidence and confidence is destroyed when right-minded people go away thinking: The judge is biased.” In the country today, there is no right thinking man that can align with the auctioned judgement of Justice Talba on this matter.

No wonder, Yusufu was compellingly re-arrested by EFCC and re-arraigned on a fresh count charge of alleged fraud and failure to disclose all his assets. The world is watching how this matter will end just as it would want to know what is delaying the trial of others that conspired with convict Yusufu. The tree of corruption with contagious branches that are infecting the chairs and stools of authority in the executive, legislative, and more sadly, the judiciary must be cut and forthwith allowed to wither away. If Nigeria must witness genuine improvement, the elimination of corruption must be elevated to a state policy, not just clichés meant to give a semblance of work-in-progress by those in power.

“The mediocre leader bemoans while the good leader inspires.” – William Arthur Ward

When on January 11, 2013, l described the current state of police, in this column, as a nemesis to this country, my mind was not adverted to Channel’s Television’s exposé on the rotten situation of the Nigeria Police College, Ikeja. Then, l was only expressing patriotic concerns for an institution that ought to be the model for maintaining peace and order in our society but which has long been lost in the dungeon of mal-administration, neglect and corruption.

Many readers believed to be agents of the establishment sent in vitriolic text messages to my mobile phone. However, the issue of abyss in the force is not about any Inspector General of Police but the urgent need to find out how the police as an institution got to this sorry pass that successive administrations overtime always shy away from discussing.

This notion was given credence by President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent visit to the Police College, Ikeja, where he witnessed first hand the horrendous atmosphere under which trainee cadet police men and women undergo training. Their condition of living was not only filthy but also a manifestation of crass decadence in the system. As rich as this country is and as important as the police is to the existence of any country, it is sad that training that is the very rudimentary basics to the evolvement of effective police could not be put right in this nation.

Perhaps, any optimistic thought that hope might be on the horizon could be a forlorn one. Ordinarily, any reasonable human being would have thought that the president would have shown grave concern about the gory spectre that he saw. But this president, thrust upon the land by fate, was more bothered by how Channels TV, to use his word, ‘penetrated’ the college to record the horrific visual it aired to the world. To our once shoeless president, that was a deliberate attempt, by imaginary enemies of his administration, to tarnish the image and non-existent integrity of his administration. The question: Why did the president made the un-announced visit to Ikeja Police College when it was not his aim to get the place repaired immediately or even be ready to discuss the problem?

In case any one is still in doubt about the pickiness of our rulers, that unheralded presidential visit really exposed the myopic thinking of President Jonathan and by extension, that of most of our leaders to police and other serious issues in the land. Where is the right thinking leadership that Nigerians have long craved for? Is it anywhere easy to get across the country or are we, for a long time, going to continue to chase shadows in this regard?

Anybody that has been privileged to travel to respectable countries of the world where police as an institution is accorded reverence and also gives back respect to the society in the discharge of its duty will realise that good training begets positive results. Nigeria has not sown that and cannot reap anything in that regard. To such widely travelled persons, the kind of damning exposé on the Ikeja Police College and the frivolous response of the president are enough to make him lose the 2015 election that he has surreptitiously been preparing for.

The applauding investigative journalism displayed by Channels in unravelling the police college degeneration would obviously have been impossible without the support of some highly placed police official who themselves are disenchanted with the way the place is being administered. It could also be that some peeved junior policemen who are displeased with the mismanagement of their superior officers conspired to make the recording a reality. Whatever the case could be, President Jonathan and IGP Mohammed Dikko must tell Nigerians what they discuss any time they meet in the closet of Aso-Rock Villa. What does the IG tell the president about the parlous state of police affairs in the country? Could it be that the IG was not aware of the rot in the Police College? If he was aware, what effort did he make to remedy the situation? The situation in Kaduna Police College is reportedly far shoddier than the scandalous state of things in Ikeja Police College; is the President through the IG aware of this too and what step have both of them taken to correct the situation?

Does the IG inform the president that police cadets undergoing training are reportedly paid N3, 500 per month when the law permits N18, 000 per month minimum wage in the land? How far can N42, 000 monthly take-home take a cadet inspector after graduation from the Police College where he went through hell during training? For the umpteenth time, let me ask the President and the IG what has happened to the operational funds for the day-to-day running of Police Stations across the country? What about the funds for the welfare of detainees in police custody that would rather die of hunger and neglect if nobody from outside agrees to provide for their food and other necessaries? Those things when sent might even miss in transit except someone in the police station is bribed to facilitate ease of money and other necessaries to detainees?

The most ruthlessly used vehicles, unlike what obtains in other climes, are police operational vehicles. Apart from being not properly serviced due to poor funding, it has also become routine to see policemen stop on the roads to collect bribes from motorists and unduly harass citizens to fuel these vehicles and to meet other personal responsibilities. Justice is alien in virtually all police stations across the country because the society, through insensitive government, has been unfair to the police. The real truth however is that the government has only been fair to families and cronies. And this ugly trend is sustained because we have a timid society with people that are not ready to stand up for their rights.

Nevertheless, the president and the IG should endeavour to tell the Nigerian public what has happened to successive budgets of the police. This president has shown deep contempt for the Nigeria Police, by extension the safety of Nigerians, and surprisingly, he expects the force to help his administration maintain peace and order across the federation. It is high time the president realise that it is what he sows that he would reap. He is the architect of his own fortune as nobody is after him.

‘Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.’
——Samuel Johnson

In present day Nigeria, the farthest profession in most people’s minds is farming. Yet, before the discovery of crude oil, the mainstay of economy in the northern and southern regions was agriculture. Now, millions of Nigerians are daily deserting the rural areas where agriculture is still thriving, even though on a largely subsistence level, to the cities of Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna and especially Lagos among others across the country. More confounding also is the fact that everybody is wishing for food in abundance for the country, but no one wants to go into farming. That precisely is the irony of the Nigerian situation.

At any point in time when a discourse on alternative revenue-generating resource from crude oil comes up, agriculture becomes the natural option. A successful farmer, Brian Brett, once described farming “as a profession of hope” but the Nigerian government has turned it into that of hopelessness. This is because the government has not done enough to bring agriculture to the level that would make it a money-spinning venture for the nation. Whereas, food is one of the cheapest things in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, where serious minded governments encourage mechanised farming through admirable subsidies among other incentives; it is however laughable to note that successive Nigerian governments have spent billions of naira on phantom fertiliser supply to farmers, tractors procurement and spectre loans that never get to the real farmers in the land.

This, to a large extent, explains why the comparative advantage of the north in groundnut/vegetables/cereals, the west in cocoa/palm oil/ofada rice among others, had not been optimally exploited till date. While other countries are consolidating their giant strides on their agricultural produce through export to generate foreign revenue, the nation has remained at the rudimentary level, basking occasionally in the euphoria of her old glory of the pre-independence and early independence eras in that sphere. How far can this cacophony of past eureka in agriculture take Nigeria?

It is in the midst of this agricultural confusion that President Goodluck Jonathan’s move to buy phones for 10 million farmers in the country was born. Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture, reportedly unveiled ab initio, the plan that he later modified by saying that government was out to subsidise the purchase of phones to the farmers and not fund it outright. Adesina claimed that he would not be deterred by ‘detractors’ criticisms in his bid to “rebuild the broken walls of Nigeria’s agriculture and unlock wealth and opportunities for our farmers.” Is the purchase of phones through tax payers’ money the best way to achieve this? What is the manifest achievement of this man since he assumed office as minister in July, 2011?

Let us assume that Adesina truly inherited a totally corrupt inefficient fertilizer sector, where the government was spending huge amounts of money on direct procurement and distribution of subsidised fertilizers but with less than 11 per cent of the farmers getting the input; is it not his duty to put things right in that sector? What mileage was he trying to get by his claim that in the seed sector, middle men and rent seekers were allegedly the ones benefiting from the billions of naira spent every year by the government for subsidies? Let him tell us who the middlemen and rent seekers are if not top officials of his ministry and their cohorts.

He claimed to have achieved this through the Growth Enhancement Support scheme in April 2012. He said the GES scheme delivered inputs to farmers directly by using their cell phones. Adesina reportedly enthused: “In the first year of the GES scheme, 1.2 million farmers received their subsidised fertilizers and seeds via their cell phones. We expect to have reached 1.5 million farmers by the end of the dry season. Let me say that this singular effort to get inputs to farmers directly resulted in the addition of an estimated 8.1 million metric tonnes of food to the domestic food supply.” What is so special about this unverifiable claim? How has it impacted on the price of food items in the market since the farmers would still have to pay for transportation?

The Minister further alluded to a report of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) study which he claimed to have affirmed that 71% of the nation’s 14million farmers have no mobile phones: Does his ministry rely on this report in arriving at the number of farmers in the country? Or does the Agriculture ministry conduct its own separate study to ascertain the number of farmers in the country? How does Adesina initially access the phone numbers of millions of farmers that directly benefited from the farm input? Was it through the data base of NCC or through the efforts of extension workers? What is the total number of extension workers in government’s employ and what method was used to get across to these farmers? Did any of the farmers ever complained to the ministry officials that they cannot afford a mobile phone?

This is another official agricultural policy abracadabra by this administration. Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo came up with a ruse cassava policy that has not taken this country to any level after billion of naira had been wasted on its conception. Sometime ago, President Jonathan came up with an ill-thought-out policy on the use of cassava flour for bread production. Even though he promised to always eat cassava bread, it is almost certain that the president himself does not eat cassava bread in Aso-Rock Villa, Abuja.

The minister, just like the failed cassava flour bread initiative goofed on this policy on mobile phones purchase for farmers. The policy is a complete misplacement of priority. For instance: Will he get recharge cards across to his erroneous self perceived ‘poor’ farmers and also provide the elusive power necessary to charge the phones in the rural areas in a country where constant power supply is a rare privilege even in the cities? There are many pressing needs in the agricultural sector that the billions of naira can address despite the fact that Adesina has denied the touted N60billion. But he should avail eager-to-know Nigerians how much the government is eventually going to spend on the project.

Let it be known to Jonathan/Adesina that the yam/orange farmers in Benue State, vegetable/groundnut ones in Kano and other core North states and their palm oil/cocoa counterparts in the west do not need Adesina’s mobile phones. What the farmers need include storage facilities, feeder roads, improved seed/seedlings, modern agricultural machineries and genuine low interest loans to expand their farms among others.

For Adesina and his team to have thought of buying or subsidising mere phones for farmers in the country underscores the contempt shown them by this administration. The thought of that policy itself, not to talk of its implementation, is insulting to the sensibilities of farmers across the country. The phone-for-farmers exercise is a further pillage of the nation’s collective till. Who can then convince me and indeed, other worried Nigerians, that the Nigerian farmers in the 21st Century have any worth in the estimation of this President and his minister? I, nay my compatriots, await a convincing answer!

“When honour and the Police no longer stand on the same side of the line, the society suffers”———Dr Patrick Wilmot (FormerABU, Zaria, lecturer)

Without being conceited, the Nigeria Police Force as an institution may fairly pass as the most corrupt and traumatised institution in the country. Yet, for the peace and security of the nation to be effectively sustained, that institution ought to be efficient and effective. Unfortunately, Nigerians under the unfurling scenario have devised alternative means of security for themselves; Nigerians have no trust in the force but fear, for the wrong reasons. The Police in the country have made mincemeat of the job of policing. Policemen for no fault of theirs now see their uniform as licence, not for protecting the citizenry from harm, but for securing their welfare through extortions and persecution of members of the public. Infact, the morass ravaging the force is a reflection of the complete value relapse plaguing the entire country. Can the force ever get out of its abyss of depravity? Can its endemic problems be solved by theoretical applications and rhetorics of Code of Conduct?

The Nigeria Police Force in its website recently hinted about its new special ‘Code of Conduct and Professional Standards for officers of the Nigeria Police Force’ that has been formally launched in Abuja. The launch of the “Code of Conduct” came a day after the National Summit on Security organised by the same institution.

The new “Code of Conduct” is the brain-child of Mohammed Dikko Abubakar, the current Inspector-General of Police. It is, as usual, setting out rules that are expected to guide and regulate the behaviour of police officers in the country. The Code purportedly contains standard policing rules as well as contemporary international best practices in law enforcement as available in various United Nations Conventions, the Nigerian constitution, Police Act and Regulations, and other domestic statutes. It is intended to be used by police officers in determining what is right and proper in all their actions.

Through this Code, the Police High Command intends to achieve transparency, accountability, professionalism and a deeper sense of civilian oversight in police activities. The Code is reportedly the IGP’s contribution to President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformational agenda. Can the Code truly transform the police from its state of opprobrium to an institution of reverence? Will this code not amount to scratching the surface without getting to the roots of police problems? Can the police function effectively, even with this code, the way it currently is? Can there be true police transformation without preceding reformation?

While browsing through the website of the Nigeria Police Force during the week, the need for complete reformation, not code of ethics of the force keeps recurring in my medulla oblongata. The history of the force as narrated by its high command gives credence to this thought. According to the website, in April 1861, the British Consul in Lagos obtained permission from his principal in London to establish a Consular Guard comprising of 30 men. Two years later in 1863, this small body of men became known as the “Hausa Guard”. It was further regularized in 1879 by an Ordinance creating a Constabulary for the Colony of Lagos.

An Inspector-General of Police commanded this Force recruited mainly from Hausas and known as the “Hausa Constabulary”. So, the first police in the nation was the Hausa Constabulary. On 1st January 1896, the Lagos Police Force was created and armed like the “Hausa Constabulary”. While the developments were taking place in Lagos and part of the Yoruba heartland, the areas now known as Edo, Delta, Akwa Ibom, River and Cross River States were declared the Oil Rivers protectorate in 1891 with Headquarters at Calabar where an armed constabulary was formed.

In 1893, the area which was proclaimed the Niger Coast Constabulary, modelled after the Hausa Constabulary, was formed. It existed for six years and featured prominently in the British expedition to Benin in 1896. In the Northern parts of the Country the Royal Niger Company, which was granted a Royal Charter in 1886 by the British Government, set up the Royal Niger Constabulary in 1888 with Headquarters at Lokoja to protect its installations along the banks of the River Niger. It had a mounted company known as Carrol’s Hoses.

The Royal Niger Constabulary played an important role in British campaigns against Bida and Ilorin. The police website stated that when the British Government in 1900 following the take-over of administration from the Royal Niger Company proclaimed protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria, the Royal Niger Constabulary was split into the Northern Nigeria Police Force and the Northern Nigeria Regiment. In the South, the Lagos Police Force and part of the Niger Coast Constabulary became the southern Nigeria Police Force in 1906 while the bulk of the Niger Coast Constabulary formed the southern Nigeria Regiments.

Thus, after the amalgamation of Northern and Southern Protectorates in 1914, both Forces continued to operate separately until April 1, 1930 when they were merged to form the present Nigeria Police Force with Headquarters in Lagos. Thus the genesis of the problems riddling the force could be traced to 1930 when the police from the north and south were merged together, ostensibly for erroneous administrative convenience. One good observation is that when the force operated separately, it had more cohesion, probity and effective policing of its immediate society. These virtues have been long lost because centralisation of the police has created unbridled corruption and collapse of morals cum ethics in the institution.

Well, those that are clamouring for a state police might have a point here while the recalcitrant posture of the northern governors against such move can be pooh-poohed because they cannot prove that the police, the way it is presently constituted, is serving the interest of the entire country. The reality is that any state where the police force is a bit fair in policing operations, the governor in the state is heavily funding its activities. The IGP cannot deny this and yet, the northern governors prefer to close their eyes to this realism.

Most communities contribute money to fund operations of police in their areas. Yet, money is annually budgeted for this purpose without it getting to the various stations across the federation. Yet, some are still vociferous in their position against decimation of the present unworkable force. How would the new code of conduct work when the police leadership is closing its eyes to proper funding of police stations’ activities and personnel welfare? This federation, through this aberration, has turned policing into policing for profiteering and not for securing lives and property of the people.

Despite the politicisation of the issue of breaking down the force and seeming difficulty of its actualisation, it is pertinent that the police hierarchy be asked what efforts successive leaderships have made to restore sanity into that institution. The truth is that the police is avoidably deteriorating everyday. The way it currently operates, the police represent everything but good. The great novelist, Sidney Sheldon, must have been thinking of committed, largely honest and justice minded security men from another clime when he posited: ‘My heroes are those who risk their lives every day to protect our world and make it a better place.’ The men and officers of the Nigeria Police Force would definitely have been outside Sheldon’s contemplation while crafting the above. Neither the government, the Police institution itself or its men and officers have done enough to protect our world or make it a better place. Is the Police as an institution not a national nemesis? The way out is not rhetorics but genuine reformation of the force.